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>COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for December 8, 2000

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>INTERNET
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>ARE PARENTS LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR CHILDRENS' INTERNET USE
>Issue:
>According to a state judge in Illinois, a parent that fails to supervise his
>or her child's use of the Internet can face trial in court. On November 28,
>Judge Ward S. Arnold of McHenry County, Illinois ruled that the father of a
>high school student accused of grafting a female classmate's head onto a
>hard-core sexual image which was then displayed on the Web, can be sued for
>damages. The young woman bringing the suit charged the offending teen with
>various wrongful acts, including defamation. She also charged that his
>father was guilty of defamation, invasion of privacy and two forms of
>negligence: negligent supervision of a child and negligent entrustment to a
>child of a dangerous article. After arguments for dismissal Judge Arnold
>left the negligence claim in place. He dismissed the privacy and defamation
>counts. The case will soon enter the pretrial discovery phase. Some lawyers
>have applauded the decision, claiming that computers can be dangerous
>devices and that adults are too often lackadaisical about the mischief
>children can do online. But other lawyers have come down harshly on Judge
>Arnold's decision, saying that a computer is like a pencil -- both may be
>abused to create a defamatory statement, but one wouldn't charge a parent
>with negligence for supplying their children with writing instruments. "As a
>parent, this ruling scares the hell out of me," said Mitchell A. Orpett,
>chair of the tort and insurance practice section of the American Bar
>Association and a partner with Tribler Orpett & Crone, a Chicago-based law
>firm. "To suggest that a parent is going to be liable for anything and
>everything that a child may do on a computer is very tough."
>[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Carl S. Kaplan]
>(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/technology/08CYBERLAW.html)
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